Big East and West Virginia are close to a settlement, to the tune of $20 million.

If you don't want to read the article, the Big XII would be willing to assist in WVU's buyout, Florida State may go after West Virginia for getting rid of their September 2012 meeting, and West Virginia may assist the Big East in finding a team to join the Big East a year early.

By getting a team to join the Big East a year earlier, WVU may lower their buyout limit. Getting a team to join a year earlier probably won't work: Conference USA has released their schedules and its doubtful that Houston, Memphis, SMU, or UCF would be allowed out a year early. The Mountain West may be a bit more likely, as the dates are yet to be finalized, but everyone knows who they are playing.

Yeah, I think you are right on this one. Especially if they don't get a replacement for WVU for this season.

Syracuse and Pitt have a legit argument about wanting to leave early - if they knew WVU was going to be let out with a cash settlement, they could have scheduled other OOC opponents ahead of time, rather than having a handful of options.

We now have two open dates on the schedule due to TCU and WVU leaving (we had three but filled one with Stony Brook).

These openings are during October and November which doesn't coincide with open dates for most D-1 schools that still have a date open.

So yeah, we may have to play Rutgers again (which may be moved to Yankee Stadium (we already play USC at the Meadowlands, which would give us only five home games with still another slot to fill). Or we may have to play two FCS teams, so that would mean those games dount count toward bowl-eligibility.

The ACC has two schedules drawn up, one with SU and Pitt, one without. They're waiting for the smoke to clear. If we go to the ACC now, our scheduling problems are immediately gone.

2. The Big East is turning into a major cluster. What is going to happen when the basketball-focused schools don't have as much say as those with football teams? This conference could expand, only to have the schools that are mainly basketball schools break away in a few years.

I kinda hope that happens. If the Big East thought there was an imbalance (btwn basketball and football schools) that wrecked the conference the last few times, what the hell is this mess?? Seriously, it's doomed. They do basketball REALLY REALLY well. I don't know how they can hold this frankenstein monstrosity together with only chewing gum, paperclips and snowballs from hell...

Pitt fans can't be a happy bunch. Over the last dozen years or so they've 1) lost their on-campus stadium in favor of an NFL venue; 2) lost their rivalry with PSU and now 3) lost their rivalry with WVU. And they just lost their coaching staff.